WOOD-TV’s Ken Kolker reports live as station photographer Larry
Gron uses a TVUpack to get video back to the station.

GRAND RAPIDS, MICH.—As the number
one station in our market, WOOD-TV
has always taken pride in delivering excellent
coverage of breaking news, weather
and investigative stories.

In expanding our newsgathering operations
during the past year, we’ve implemented
a number of technologies to help
us better capture the story and get the best
coverage possible. One of the tools we use
is the TVUPack cellular ENG transmission
system.

GOING LIVE FROM ANYWHERE
TVUPack provides a flexible system for
delivering live video from various locations
where using a live truck isn’t practical.
A seven-day period in early January this
year provides a good example of how we
were able to put the TVUPack through its
paces in covering important stories in multiple
states.

We first used the TVUPack when we travelled
to California to cover Michigan State’s
football program as it prepared for the Rose
Bowl. Since we didn’t have to rent a satellite
truck, we were able to cover the game more
cost-effectively than in the past, while delivering
more live shots. With the TVUPack we
could go live from many locations, from the
pep rallies around Pasadena to the football
field after the game. The ability to go live on
the field following the Rose Bowl win for the
Spartans can’t be understated, as the game
was a really big story in our market and the
technology allowed us to
cover the playing field in a
way that we couldn’t have
done with a satellite truck
or a prepackaged piece delivered
via FTP.

Later the same week,
we had a major fire in
Grand Rapids that burned
a significant portion of
a minor league baseball
park. After securing approval
from the fire department,
we used the
TVUPack to go live from
inside the ballpark while
the flames were still being
put out. The resulting images provided an
excellent perspective on the kind of damage
that had taken place.

‘LIVE FROM THE SNOWPLOW’
A few days later, much of the Midwest
was thrown into a deep freeze by winter
storms, resulting in significant whiteout
conditions. We used the TVUPack to take
our viewers to places where live trucks
couldn’t go. The extreme weather conditions
caused problems with our ENG
trucks, but the TVUPack never failed, allowing
us to go live from inside a snow plow
cab while the operator drove.

Backpack journalism is no longer a
novelty. The TVUPack has become a necessary
tool for our reporters. Although
backpack transmitters such as the TVUPack
shouldn’t be considered an outright
replacement for live trucks just yet, the
technology has proven advantageous for
traveling camera crews and for immediate
breaking news as it allows us to get on
location faster than we ever could with
a truck.

The FAA’s current rules and proposed ban on flight over people, requirement of visual line of sight and restriction on nighttime flying, effectively prohibit broadcasters from using UAS for newsgathering. ~ WMUR-TV General Manager Jeff Bartlett